Nigeria Ready To Rebase GDP To Boost Economic Growth

Nigeria is looking to
rebase its Growth Domestic Product (GDP) to identify sectors that have been
left out in the nation's
GDP for 15 years.
Briefing reporters after the Federal Executive Council meeting
on Wednesday, the Minister of
Information, Labaran Maku, said
the Minister of Finance briefed
the meeting about the planned
GDP rebase.

He told the reporters that the
Ministries of Finance and
National Planning, the Chief
Statistician to the Federation and
international agencies like IMF,
AFDB, IDB had understudied the
sectors of the Nigerian economy
for more than one year.

The event, which will take place
on Sunday at the NICON Hilton
Hotel in Abuja, will formally
enable Nigeria to know a few of
the sectors that recorded the
most progress and which ones
are lagging behind.

"We are supposed to do this
every five years. Every country re-
calibrates its own GPD statistics
and date to show the progress
made or challenges faced by the
economy. The council was
briefed that Nigeria will formally
release the new GDP figures for
the country on Sunday.

"The importance of this is that,
for the first time in 15 years, we
will know, scientifically, what the
GDP figure is and what the
contributions of every sector to
the economy are. We will also be
able to know the sectors that
have made the most progress
and which ones are lagging
behind," Mr Maku said.

The meeting, which was chaired
by the Vice President, Mr Namadi
Sambo, also discussed the
speculations of Ebola diseases
outbreak in Nigeria and the
Minister of Information
reassured Nigerians that there
were no cases of Ebola fever in
Nigeria.

He said that the Minister of State
for Health, Dr Khaliru Alhassan,
had told the council that his
ministry, during the week, took
time out to verify the
speculations and that his
findings indicated that Ebola
fever was not in Nigeria.
At a news conference in Abuja
on Monday, Dr Alhassan,
dismissed media report that
there was an outbreak of the
disease, saying that laboratory
investigations revealed that it is
not Ebola but dengue fever.

He said: "Most Nigerians mistake
Dengue fever, which is also
transmitted by mosquitoes in
urban and semi urban areas, for
Ebola disease.
"Dengue Fever is caused by a
virus usually transmitted through
a particular type of mosquito, not
the normal anopheles mosquito
that we know in Nigeria that
transmits malaria.

"Its symptoms are very similar to
that of malaria, with fever,
headache, body pains and
associated vomiting. It can easily
be mistaken for malaria where
there is no high index of
suspicion in the first instance,"
Dr Alhassan said.

He stressed that the government
had taken a proactive measure
by putting all port and border
posts on high alert to screen
travellers from countries with
confirmed Ebola cases.

Reference: Ministry of Education